Category Archives: Documentary

60's Counterculture, Art world, Documentary

SIFF 2010: Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling ***

June 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 5, 2010)

Image result for candy darling

Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling is about “that” Candy Darling, famously name-dropped in Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”. Who was “she”, exactly? Should we care? I went into James Rasin’s documentary with a little consternation. Yet another film about Andy Warhol’s Factory, and his orbiting freak show of sycophants, wannabes and “superstars” who were (mostly) famous just for being famous? As it turns out, Rasin’s film is not so much about the Factory, or really ultimately “about” Darling, who fascinated Warhol for the requisite “15 minutes”, before getting kicked to the curb. It’s a study in sadness.

It’s the sadness of a lonely childhood; of a boy growing up on Long Island (as Jimmy Slattery) who yearned to be a famous female movie star; no more, no less. She was featured in a few Warhol films and had the lead in a play tailored for her by Tennessee Williams-only to die of lymphoma in 1974, at age 29, virtually penniless. It’s the eternal sadness of her friend, Jeremiah Newton, still carrying a torch for a long-gone (platonic) relationship, as he dutifully arranges a belated burial for her ashes, 35 years on. It’s the sad, sad mood of Rasin’s film-as wistful and ephemeral as the androgynous and translucent Darling’s moment in the sun.

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Politics

SIFF 2010: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls ***

June 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 29, 2010)

Sometimes, it’s kind of fun to just throw a dart at the SIFF schedule and see where it lands. I had no clue as to what to expect when the lights went down for the screening of Leanne Pooley’s documentary The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. All I knew was that it was a film about yodeling lesbian twins. I didn’t even know if it was for real; it sounded like a mockumentary, to be honest. To my surprise, by the time the lights came up, my faith in humanity had almost returned.

Because you see, it’s hard to be depressed after spending 90 minutes with the film’s subjects. Jools and Linda Topp have to be two of the most charming, down-to-earth, warm-hearted and preternaturally gifted entertainers you’d ever want to meet in a screen profile. Hugely popular in their native New Zealand, the 52-year old Topps have been bringing audiences their unique blend of music and comedy (and yodeling) since the 1980s.

What most impressed me was their dedication to progressive activism (Billy Bragg describes them as “an anarchist variety act”). Over the years, they have campaigned for LGBT rights, participated in protests in support of civil rights for New Zealand’s indigenous Maoris, and worked in support of the anti-nuke movement (to name a few). What’s refreshing about their political work is that there is no grandstanding; you don’t doubt their sincerity for a second (“what you see is what you get” says one of their fans). Pooley’s film is as upbeat and straightforward as her subjects; imparting the joy of creating something that is at once entertaining and inspiring

Art world, Documentary, Drug Culture, Writers

Art is a strange hotel: Chelsea on the Rocks **

June 24, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 31, 2009)

Bill and Andy’s excellent adventure.

Since 1883, the Hotel Chelsea in New York City has been the center of the universe for bohemian culture. It has been the hostelry of choice for the holiest of hipster saints over the years, housing just about anybody who was anybody in the upper echelons of poets, writers, playwrights, artists, actors, directors, musicians, and free thinkers over the past century.

Some checked in whenever they were in town, and some lived as residents for years on end. Some checked out forever within its walls over the years (from Dylan Thomas to Sid Vicious’ ill-fated girlfriend, Nancy Spungen). Of course, not every single resident was a luminary, but chances are they were someone who had a story or two to tell. Abel Ferrara, a director who has been known to spin a sordid New York tale or two (China Girl, Bad Lieutenant, King of New York, The Funeral) has attempted to paint a portrait of the hotel with his new documentary, Chelsea on the Rocks-with mixed results.

Blending interviews with current residents with archival footage and docudrama vignettes, Ferrara tackles this potentially intriguing subject matter in frustrating fits and starts. He never decides whether he wants to offer up a contextualized history, an impressionistic study, or simply a series of “So tell me your favorite Chelsea anecdote” stories (ranging from genuinely funny or harrowing to banal and/or incomprehensible).

The most fascinating parts of the film to me were the relatively brief bits of archival footage. For instance, a fleeting 15 or 20 second clip of Andy Warhol and William Burroughs sharing a little repast in one of the hotel’s rooms vibes much more of the essence of what the Chelsea was “about” in its heyday than (for the sake of argument) a seemingly endless present-day segment with director Milos Forman holding court and swapping memories with Ferrara in the lobby, during which neither manages to say anything of much interest to anyone but each other.

There is a lack of judicious editing in the film, and therein lies its fatal flaw. Ferrara has an annoying habit of jabbering on in the background while his interviewees are speaking, to the point where it starts to feel too “inside” and exclusionary to the viewer. This is exacerbated by the fact that no present-day interviewees are identified. While some of them were easy to spot (Robert Crumb, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper and the aforementioned Milos Forman) the majority were otherwise obscure (so who are these people, and why should we care, again?).

You get the impression that the director made this film for himself and his circle of peers, and it’s a case of “Well, if you aren’t part of the New York art scene and have to ask who these people are, then you obviously aren’t hip enough for the room.” He lures you into the lobby, but alas, can’t convince you to check in for the night.

Big Money, Documentary

SIFF 2009: We Live in Public ***

June 23, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 30, 2009)

Marshall McLuhan is spinning.

So, how many “internet pioneers” were there, anyway? Tiresome jokes about Al Gore “inventing” the web aside, it seems every time you turn around, yet another person is credited for being the “visionary” who put “us” where “we” are today (wherever the hell that is, in the virtual sense).

Take the naked guy in the photo above, for instance. His name is Josh Harris. He’s an internet pioneer. Ever hear of him? God knows, I hadn’t, until I screened a fascinating new documentary called We Live in Public. The film was a 10-year labor of love for director Ondi Timoner (Dig!). Depending on who you ask, her subject is either an unheralded genius, or a complete loon who got lucky during the dot com boom (he’s a bit of both). By 1999, Harris had built a personal fortune of 80 million dollars by cannily presaging the explosion of social networking. In less than ten years, he was completely broke and had expatriated himself to Ethiopia.

What separates Harris from the rest of the nerdy, pocket-protected web entrepreneurs is his self-styled persona as an “artist” (he apparently was referred to by some as the “Warhol of the Web”). He considered his “art” to be his life (and the lives of others), as filtered, documented and shared through the matrix of digital technology.

In December 1999, Harris bankrolled a “social experiment” that could have been concocted by Hunter S. Thompson and Jim Jones on an ether binge. Harris narrowed down scores of applicants to 100 “subjects” who would room together in a bunker-like underground environment for 30 days. Each person had to consent to having a CCTV camera trained on them 24/7. Each also had his or her own monitor, with access to “flip channels” and peek in on what any of the other 99 people were doing at any given time (showers and toilets were communal, and there were no bedroom doors, to answer the obvious question). The complex was stockpiled with food, beverages, and guns (the latter allowed people to “blow off steam”). Each person was housed in their own sleeping pod.

Harris hired psychologists, who would grill residents in stark interrogation rooms. It was fun and games for the first couple weeks, but things quickly went downhill when people started losing their sense of reality. When New York City law enforcement caught wind of these (literally) underground shenanigans, they pictured a Heaven’s Gate-type cult scenario, and Harris’ “experiment” was abruptly shut down on January 1, 2000. Orwellian implications aside, the idea itself was prescient; especially when you consider the current popularity of personal webcams and the glut of reality TV.

Harris soon took the concept to the next level when he wired up every room in his home with cameras and launched the “We Live in Public” website with his girlfriend, enabling any one with an internet connection to peek in on their daily life (with absolutely no holds barred). By the time Harris pulled the plug six months later, his girlfriend had left him, daily hits were down to a handful, and he appeared to be in the middle of a mental meltdown (watching the footage of Harris moping about, I was reminded of Charles Foster Kane’s waning days, listlessly pacing the empty halls of Xanadu).

From a purely cinematic standpoint, Timoner has assembled an absorbing and stylishly kinetic portrait; but curiously, her subject remains somewhat of an enigma by the film’s end. Is he truly a “pioneer”, or is he just a glorified exhibitionist? What did he “pave the way” for, ultimately…Katie Couric’s televised colonoscopy? Is there such a thing as “too much information” in the Information Age? Does everybody necessarily need their “15 minutes”? If so, why? Is the medium the message? And while I’ve got your attention, have you seen this video of my adorable little cat with a bag stuck on his head?

Big Money, Corporate Intrigue, Documentary, On Politics

SIFF 2009: The Yes Men Fix the World ***

June 23, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 30, 2009)

Live bait: The Yes Men chum for corporate sharks

What do you get when you throw Roger and Me and The Sting into a blender? Probably something along the lines of The Yes Men Fix the World, an alternately harrowing and hilarious documentary featuring anti-corporate activist/pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. This is a more focused follow up to their ballsy but uneven debut, The Yes Men.

In that 2003 film, they established a simple yet amazingly effective Trojan Horse formula that garnered the duo invitations to key business conferences and TV appearances as “WTO spokesmen”. Once lulling their marks into a comfort zone, they would then proceed to cause well-deserved public embarrassment for some evil corporate bastards, whilst exposing the dark side of global free trade. (Most amazingly, they have managed not to suffer “brake failure” on a mountain road, if you know what I’m saying).

In this outing, Bichlbaum, Bonanno and co-director Kurt Engfehr come out swinging, vowing to do a take-down of a very powerful nemesis…an Idea. If money makes the world go ‘round, then this particular Idea is the one that oils the crank on the money-go-round, regardless of the human cost. It is the free market cosmology of economist Milton Friedman, which the Yes Men posit as the root of much evil in the world.

Of course, there is not much our dynamic duo can do at this point to take the man himself down (as the forlorn expressions on their faces during a visit to his grave site would indicate); but the Idea survives, as do those who would “drink the Kool-Aid”. And thus, the fun begins.

Perhaps “fun” isn’t quite the appropriate term, but there are definitely hijinx afoot, and you’ll find yourself chuckling through most of the film (when you’re not crying). However, the filmmakers have a loftier goal than mining laughs: they want to smoke out some corporate accountability; and ideally, atonement. I know that “corporate accountability” is an oxymoron, but one still has to admire the dogged determination (and boundless creativity) of the Yes Men and their co-conspirators, despite the odds.

Case in point: the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, when a Union Carbide pesticide plant mishap exposed 500,000 people (200,000 of them children) to a toxic gas. Between 8,000 and 10,000 deaths occurred within 3 days. Since then, an estimated additional 25,000 Bhopal residents have since died from complications due to exposure. Union Carbide eventually paid an insurance settlement to the Indian government of 470 million dollars in 1989 (it sounds like a lot of loot…until you split it 500,000 ways). To add insult to injury, Union Carbide pulled up stakes (read: fled the scene of the crime) without ever cleaning up the site; to this day residents are drinking groundwater leached by toxins.

In 2004, BBC News did a special report on the 20^th anniversary of the tragedy, which included an appearance by a spokesman for Dow Chemical (the corporation that had just recently acquired Union Carbide at the time of the broadcast). The spokesman, a Mr. “Jude Finisterra” made an astounding, headline-grabbing announcement: In an effort to truly atone for the Bhopal incident, Dow Chemical was going to invest a tidy sum of 12 billion dollars to clean up the area and compensate the victims.

For several hours, all hell broke loose; Dow stockholders panicked and dumped over 2 billion dollars worth of stock in record time. To anyone with a soul, it was too good to be true-corporate criminals coming clean on live TV, in front of 300 million viewers? There’s hope for humanity! Well, not exactly. “Jude Finisterra” was really a member of our intrepid duo.

But the point was made; in fact, the real beauty of the ruse didn’t come into full flower until the Yes Men were “exposed”. When the real Dow Chemical spokespeople jumped into the fray to denounce the prank, they only made themselves look more ridiculous (and culpable) by essentially saying “Obviously, we would not commit such a large amount of money in this manner (i.e. of course we would never publicly take responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people).”

The most distressing thing to observe is how quickly the MSM jumps in to toe the corporate line; in the case of the Dow sting (and later in the film, when they pose as HUD spokesmen, announcing that the government agency will provide housing for all the Katrina victims it had originally displaced in order to clear the way for redevelopment by private sector contractors) the newspapers and TV news anchors condemn the “cruel hoax” that gave “false hopes” to the victims of Bhopal and Katrina, respectively.

When the concerned Yes Men travel to Bhopal to personally apologize to the residents for their “cruelty”, they are greeted with open arms; one Bhopal victim tells them that even though he was admittedly disappointed, he was, for an hour or so, “in Heaven”. By the end of the film, the Yes Men may not actually “fix the world”, but they certainly succeed in giving it hope with their sense of compassion and infectious optimism. And for an hour or so, I was in Heaven.

60's Counterculture, Documentary, On Politics

All power to the people: William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe ***

June 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 7, 2009)

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a sometimes stirring, sometimes confounding, yet ultimately moving portrait of the iconoclastic and controversial defense lawyer who was sort of the Zelig of the radical Left throughout most of the 1970s. Somehow, he became the key legal champion for the Chicago 7, The Black Panther Party, anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan, the American Indian Movement and the ill-fated inmates who initiated the Attica prison riots.

However, beginning sometime in the 1980s (for reasons known only to himself, or perhaps just merely in keeping with the inherently contrarian nature of a defense lawyer) he slowly but surely turned to The Dark Side (at least in the opinion, and to the chagrin, of many of his professional cohorts and former “co-conspirators”). He began taking on high-profile cases involving clients who were decidedly less sexy to the dedicated followers of fashionable radical chic.

These clients included accused terrorists (including the chief planner of the first World Trade Center attack and the man accused of murdering Rabbi Kahane), mobsters (John Gotti and associates), notorious murderers (L.I. Railroad killer Colin Ferguson) and alleged rapists (the Central Park jogger assault case)-to name a few.

The filmmakers may have more personal reasons to be stymied by this mass of contradictions, and may be best qualified to take a stab at analysis-because after all, he was their dad. Emily and Sarah Kunstler were precocious film makers from an early age; they were in a position to capture a wealth of candid home movie moments of a man who spent a good deal of his professional life playing up to the news cameras. This footage is interwoven in such a way to greatly humanize a man who had a larger-than-life public persona,

To their credit, the film makers don’t sugarcoat that they were actually quite puzzled and horrified by some of their father’s professional choices (not to mention that some of those choices precipitated some all-too-real death threats against the family).

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Kunstler’s eventual decision to seemingly pull any defendant’s name out of the hat and give it his all, regardless of the possible political perceptions, the ultimate takeaway you get from the film is the same one his daughters movingly acknowledge in the denouement-there’s never anything wrong with making a stand against social injustice, even if you’re the only one who perceives it.

This point is brought home when Emily and Sarah remind us that the young African Americans originally brought to trial in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, roundly vilified in the media and vigorously defended by their father, were exonerated in 2002, when DNA linked a murderer to the rape. And so it goes.

Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Fantasy

Let’s start a (virtual) fistfight: Top 10 Films of the Decade

June 22, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 13, 2009)

I know you didn’t ask, but being that it’s “that time of year” for the inevitable Top 10 lists, AND “that time of the decade” as well, I thought I might offer up my picks for (tympani roll, please) the Top 10 films of uh, erm…WTF do we call it-the “Aughts”?

At any rate, here for your consideration, edification, or (most likely reaction) eternal damnation, is my list, subjective as hell (please keep grain of salt handy). As per usual, they are presented in alphabetical order, NOT in order of preference or rank. Cheers…

Amelie-I know this one has its haters (?!), but Jean-Pierre Juenet’s beautifully realized film stole this reviewer’s heart. Audrey Tautou lights up the screen as a gregarious loner who decides to become a guardian angel (and benign devil) and commit random, anonymous acts of kindness. The plight of Amelie’s “people in need” is suspiciously similar to her own-those who need that little push to come out of self-imposed exiles and revel in life’s simple pleasures. Of course, our heroine is really in search of her own happiness and fulfillment. Does she find it? You’ll have to see for yourself. Whimsical, original, humanistic and life-affirming, Amelie will melt the most cynical of hearts.

American Splendor– From the streets of Cleveland! Paul Giamatti was born to play underground comic writer Harvey Pekar, the misanthropic file clerk/armchair philosopher who became a cult figure through his collaborations with legendary illustrator R. Crumb. Co-directors Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini keep their biopic fresh and engaging via some unusual choices, like breaking down the fourth wall by having the real Pekar interacting with Giamatti in several scenes; it’s quite effective. Hope Davis is excellent as Pekar’s deadpan wife. Thoroughly engaging and surprisingly moving at times, this is one film that genuinely “made me laugh and made me cry”-and I don’t say that very often.

The Brotherhood of the Wolf– If I told you that the best martial arts film of the decade features an 18^th-century French libertine/naturalist/philosopher and his enigmatic “blood-brother” (an Iroquois mystic) who are on the prowl for a huge, supernaturally cunning man-eating creature that is terrorizing the countryside-would you avoid eye contact with me and quickly scurry to the other side of the street? (I thought so.) Christophe Gans’ film defies category; Dangerous Liaisons meets Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter by way of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the best I can do for you. Regardless, this lushly photographed and handsomely produced epic is exciting, sexy, and one-of-a-kind.

The Fellowship of the Ring-Taken as a whole, Peter Jackson’s gargantuan film trilogy adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s revered fantasy-adventure is not without its flaws (and fanboy-lamented abridgements and revisions), but he damn near gets it all pitch-perfect in the first installment. Even though it is only the beginning of the epic tale, the original book was always my favorite volume. I think it’s because it sparks that joy of first discovering Tolkien’s wondrous fantasy world, and Jackson’s film does it proud. The two sequels tend to go a little over the top, but this film maintains a perfect blend of character, heart, and rousing heroics; not to mention an immersive sense of mythic time and place.

Man on the Train-There are a only a handful of films I have seen in my lifetime that I have become emotionally attached to, sometimes for reasons I can’t always comprehend (Koyaanisqatsi and Local Hero spring to mind). This is one of them. Perhaps best described as an “existential noir”, Patrice LeConte’s relatively simple tale of two men in the twilight of their life with completely disparate life paths (a retired poetry teacher and a career felon) forming an unexpectedly deep bond turns into an equally unexpectedly transcendent film experience. French pop star Johnny Hallyday and the wonderful screen veteran Jean Rochefort deliver revelatory performances. I feel an urge to go watch it now.

Man on Wire– Late in the summer of 1974, a diminutive Frenchman named Philippe Petit took a casual morning stroll across a ¾” steel cable, stretched between the two towers of the then-unfinished World Trade Center. On the surface, this may appear to be a straightforward documentary about this eccentric high wire artist who was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. In actuality, it is one of the best suspense/heist movies of the decade, although no guns are drawn and nothing gets stolen. It is also very romantic, although it is not a traditional love story. Like Petit’s sky-high walk itself, James Marsh’s film is ultimately an act of pure aesthetic grace, and deeply profound. (Full review)

The Mayor of the Sunset Strip– This amazing rockumentary, an alternately exhilarating and melancholy portrait of L.A. music scene fixture Rodney Bingenheimer was directed by George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl). The diminutive, skittish and soft-spoken Rodney comes off like Andy Warhol’s west coast doppelganger. Although the film is ostensibly “about” Rodney, it is ultimately a whirlwind time trip through rock music’s evolution, filtered through a coked-out L.A. haze and informed by its subject’s Zelig-like propensity to have been photographed with seemingly everybody who was ever anybody in the business. So is he a true “rock impresario”, or just a glorified Rupert Pupkin? You decide.

Memories of Murder-Buoyed by its artful production and knockout performances, this brutal, uncompromising police procedural from director Joon-ho Bong really gets under your skin. Based on the true story of South Korea’s first known serial killer, it follows a pair of rural homicide investigators as they search for a prime suspect. Initially, they seem bent on instilling more fear into the local citizenry than the lurking killer, as they proceed to violate every civil liberty known to man. Soon, however, the team’s dynamic is tempered by the addition of a more cool-headed detective from Seoul, who takes the profiler approach. The film doubles as a fascinating glimpse into modern Korean culture.

Spirited Away-Innovative Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki has made a lot of great films, but this may well be his crowning achievement. A young girl and her parents inadvertently stumble into a resort spa reserved exclusively for traditional Japanese deities and other assorted denizens of the spirit world. Needless to say, this “security breach” throws the phantasmagorical residents into quite a tizzy; Mom and Dad are turned into barnyard animals and their daughter has to rely on her wits and previously untapped inner strength to save them. Visually stunning and imaginative beyond description, it also tells a beautiful story-funny, touching, exciting and empowering.

There Will Be Blood– What you see in the dialog-free prologue of Paul Thomas Andersons’ gripping epic may not be as seminal as Kubrick’s “dawn of man” sequence in 2001, but it does put the focus on something just as primordial. It is something that is buried deep within the capitalist DNA-the relentless drive to amass wealth and power through willful exploitation and opportunism. And this very American “ideal” (love it or loathe it) has never been so perfectly embodied as it is in Daniel Day Lewis’ magnificent performance as self-made oil man Daniel Plainview. In his worldview, you are either with him, or you are his “competitor”. And trust me-he WILL “…drink your milkshake”. (Full review)

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Music, Rock 'n' Roll

Picky, picky, picky: It Might Get Loud (**1/2)

June 20, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 19, 2009)

“My goal is to trick these guys into showing me their tricks,” confides a visibly nervous Jack White with somewhat forced bravado as he heads for an exclusive guitar player’s confab with U2’s The Edge and the legendary Jimmy Page, As our cocky young Mr. White comes to learn (along with the viewer) during the course of Davis Guggenheim’s new rockumentary, It Might Get Loud, “tricks”…erm, are for kids.

I will confess that, despite being a huge Zep fan, I was going to give this one a pass (at least until the DVD) because it offended my sensibilities that anyone would infer that the other two (talented as they may be) deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as Pagey-but a friend shamed me into dragging my lazy ass out to the theater. White (singer-guitarist for the White Stripes and The Raconteurs), The Edge and Page may seem like odd bedfellows; but once I “got” the filmmaker’s intent, it started to sort of make sense.

Each of the film’s three subjects represents a distinct type of species within the genus of Rock Guitarist. First, you have The Primitive (represented by White). The Primitive is raw, instinctively expressive and spontaneous (any piece of wood with strings will do…plugged into something that makes noise).

Then, we have The Gearhead (represented by The Edge). The Gearhead is the antithesis of The Primitive; he is controlled and precise, obsessed with hardware and perennially tweaking his settings to match the elusive Perfect Tone he hears in his head.

Finally, we have The Virtuoso (Page), who can pick up any stringed instrument, from a mandolin to a Les Paul, and make it sing like a gift from the gods (or as Page dubs it, “the whisper and the thunder”).

Guggenheim inter-cuts separately filmed interviews, with each artist discussing his influences and techniques. The individual interviews offer a bit more insight than the summit, which feels staged and awkward at times; and when the three do play a few numbers together, the result is disappointingly pedestrian (it’s not unlike the discordant sonic wash of “Riffs ‘r’ Us” that assaults you when you stroll into a Guitar Center on a busy Saturday afternoon).

I suppose your reaction to the film will hinge on how big a fan you are of the individual musicians profiled. For me, Page has the most interesting back story and could have easily provided enough material to fill the movie’s entire running time. He’s kind of the Zelig of rock guitarists; over the course of his career he’s proven to be adept at nearly every style of music you’d care to mention.

As a teen Page played in skiffle, blues, and R&B bands, and by the mid 60s had become one of England’s most in-demand session players, playing with everyone from Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey to The Who and The Kinks (although it isn’t mentioned in the film, one of his most recognizable solos-for-hire is that fuzz-toned riffing on Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man”). Once he joined The Yardbirds, the stage was set for the formation of Led Zeppelin, and the rest is History.

I don’t mean to belittle the fact that U2 is one of the most popular bands on the planet, or that Jack White doesn’t have his moments of inspiration; but in the context of the filmmaker’s intent, you do wonder what he hoped to achieve by bringing these three disparate stylists together. As a guitar player, I could compartmentalize what each artist brings to the table, but I was still scratching my head when it was over. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I’ll plug in and brush up on a bit of that “whisper and thunder” myself.

Documentary, On Politics

The bi-curious case of the closeted Neocons: Outrage ***

June 15, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 23, 2009)

If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to drive your car
If you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the Sunday papers, read it in the Sunday papers

-Joe Jackson

Speaking as the court jester, class clown, resident buffoon (take your pick) here among the otherwise accomplished and well-respected political writers at Digby’s Hullabaloo, what I am about to do could be construed as tantamount to biting the hand that feeds me, but I want you to know that I do this out of love. Think of it as an intervention. My esteemed colleagues have a dirty little secret, and I’m going to out them, right here, right now. Okay…are you ready?

Hypocrisy is their bread and butter.

There, I’ve said it. Mind you, this “hypocrisy” of which I speak is not in reference to what they write, but what they write about. Because let’s face it-if hypocrisy did not proliferate in politics like the weeds on the banks of the Potomac, they would not have much to write about. And I’ll wager that they would sleep better, stop yelling at the tube, and not have to keep blood pressure pills in a Pez dispenser.

Political hypocrisy is certainly nothing new, nor is it a particularly partisan phenomenon when one is speaking in general terms. However, one of the biggest head-scratchers in recent years is revelation after revelation concerning closeted Republican politicians who refuse to publicly address gay rights issues and have a record of consistently voting down legislation that would benefit the LGBT community. The explanations for this behavior may not be as cut and dry as you might think, according to a fascinating, provocative new documentary from Kirby Dick, called Outrage.

Dick grabs your attention right off the bat, with audio excerpts from the police interrogation of Senator Larry Craig after his arrest for “homosexual lewd misconduct” in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. However, it soon becomes clear that the film is not going to be just a collage of sensationalized “outings” or a prurient rehash of high-profile media circuses like the Craig case.

Instead, the film specifically targets those closeted politicians who play the charade by cloaking themselves in the time-honored “family values” meme of the conservative Right. It’s not about calling these public servants out on the fact that they are living a lie in their personal life, per se; rather, it patiently illustrates how this type of self-deluding behavior by people in positions of power not only does a disservice to their constituents at large, but contributes to the continued sociopolitical suppression of the LGBT community.

The director finds a perfect framing device by profiling Blogactive’s Michael Rogers, who has been on a diligent one-man crusade to out every closeted politician who has voted down gay rights issues. There are also archival and new interviews with the likes of ex-New Jersey governor James McGreevey (who outed himself after resigning his post), the former Mrs. McGreevey, current Florida governor Charlie Crist, and Congressman Barney Frank (who offers the most pragmatic perspective on the issue).

In one of my favorite scenes, Dick cleverly parses the by-now-familiar footage of McGreevey’s final press conference as governor by deliberately zooming in on his wife’s blanched, incredulous facial expression (I think I now understand what they mean by “looking daggers”) There are surprises as well, like several well-chosen Freudian bloopers by TV anchors (Dick, like Michael Moore, does not forget to entertain, as well as outrage).

The film also gives historical perspective on the phenomenon; particularly in regard to notorious McCarthyite Roy Cohn (playwright Tony Kushner briefly discusses the fictionalized Cohn character he created for Angels in America). Curiously, the most dangerously powerful closet case of all time, J. Edgar Hoover is not mentioned. Then again, Dick may not have even known where to start; Hoover’s decades-long reign of hypocrisy could easily provide enough material for a Ken Burns-length miniseries in and of itself.

The takeaway for me was this: Anyone who would lie to themselves (about anything of conscience or consequence, not just sexual identity) ideally should never, ever be entrusted to power over the lives of others. Which begs a question: If that credo could be magically imposed, how many people would be left in government? Do you think we could count them on more than one hand?

Big Money, Documentary, On Politics, Up the Workers

Let fiefdom ring: Capitalism: a Love Story ***1/2

June 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 3, 2009)

Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own

Who comes to speak for the skin and bone?

-Billy Bragg

So it’s not just me. Recently, in my review of Public Enemies, I wrote:

If you blink, you might miss the chance to revel in a delicious moment of schadenfreude in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies that decidedly con-temporizes this otherwise ol’skool “gangsters vs. G-men” opus. In the midst of conducting an armed robbery, the notoriously felonious John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) notices that a bank employee has reflexively emptied his pockets of some crumpled bills and loose change onto his desk. “That’s your money, mister?” Dillinger asks. “Yes,” the frightened man replies. Dillinger gives him a bemused look and says, “We’re here for the bank’s money, not yours. Put it away.”

I almost stood up and cheered…then I remembered that a) Dillinger was a murderous thug, and b) I would never even fantasize about participating in such a caper, so I thought better of it. Still, I couldn’t help but savor an opportunity for a little vicarious thrill at watching a bank getting hosed. I don’t know…it could’ve had something to with the fact that my bank recently doubled my credit card interest, even after they eagerly gobbled up the bailout money that was funded by my hard-earned tax dollars (ya think?). In fact, in the context of our current economic woes, one can watch Mann’s film and sort of grok how John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd and other “public enemy” list alums gained folk hero cachet during the Great Depression.

In the opening credits of Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore runs a montage of real-life bank robberies in progress. As you watch masked felons in slow-mo, strong-arming their way through bank lobbies, firing off warning salvos into the air like it’s the 4^th of July and leaping over counters like Peking acrobats, it becomes an oddly balletic rendering of the ever-widening chasm between the Haves and the Have-nots in our country, writ large through the unblinking eye of a security camera and all choreographed to Iggy Pop’s growling rendition of “Louie Louie”:

The communist world is fallin apart
The capitalists are just breakin hearts
Money is the reason to be
It makes me just wanna sing louie louie

So how did we arrive to this sorry state of our Union, where the number of banks being robbed by desperate people is running neck and neck with the number of desperate banks robbing We The People? What paved the way for the near-total collapse of our financial system and its subsequent government bailout, which Moore provocatively refers to as a “financial coup d’etat”?

The enabler, Moore suggests, may be our sacred capitalist system itself-and he proceeds to build a case (in his inimitable fashion) that results in his most engaging, thought-provoking film since Roger and Me (and you can call me a Commie for saying that…I don’t care).

In essence, this film is the belated sequel to the aforementioned 1989 documentary; it would seem that, 20 years later, the rest of the country has “caught up” with Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan. Roger and Me chronicled the economic collapse of the city following General Motors CEO Roger Smith’s decision to close down the plants that once employed 30,000 of its residents.

Moore does take a few moments in his new film to bask in the “what goes around, comes around” irony of GM’s bankruptcy filing this past June-and you can’t really blame him. If you recall the heartbreaking scene in Roger and Me of a family getting evicted on Christmas Eve by an apologetic yet duty-bound sheriff, you will detect a bit of recycling in that department; same as it ever was.

However, this is not just a rehash of what happens when the capitalist dream dies, but an attempt to examine why it so often does. Moore digs deep into the dark underbelly of the beast in this outing; he gives us many eye-opening examples of truly soulless profiteering and unchecked vulture capitalism at its most egregious.

The film’s trailer has misled many people into assuming that they are just going to be seeing Moore doing another series of his patented grandstanding pranks. Although you do see him running around Wall Street armed with a megaphone, yellow crime scene tape and a rented Loomis truck, demanding a refund from bailed out financial institutions on behalf of the American taxpayers and generally being a pain-in-the-ass to hapless security guards, these types of shenanigans really only take up a relative fraction of screen time.

Those moments of shtick aside, I think that the film represents the most cohesive and mature film making Moore has done to date. Interestingly, from a purely polemical standpoint, it is also one of his least partisan, which I’m sure is going to make some of his usual knee-jerk critics develop a little twitch. Not that it really matters; his haters will continue to despise him no matter what kind of film he makes, and likely condemn it as anti-American, unpatriotic and full of lies (without bothering to actually see it, of course).

Okay, so he does close the film with a lounge-y version of “The Internationale” playing over the end credits (you just know he can’t help himself). Yet despite that rather obvious provocation (and the film’s title, of course), I didn’t really find his message to be so much “down with capitalism” as it is “up with people”.

There is a streak of genuine and heartfelt humanism that runs through all his work; a fact curiously overlooked by many. Isn’t that kind of what the founding fathers were all about? After all, I believe that little Declaration thingie reads that we all have the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, not “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, even at the expense of someone else’s”. Or does it?